Essays

The collections that comprise the New Brunswick Bibliography database are the products of various projects and approaches to bibliography. The Children’s Books of Brunswick Press: 1952-1984 collection is a scholarly, analytic bibliography, chronicling the publication of a series of books in New Brunswick and describing the physical characteristics of each work. The Archaeology and Religion bibliographies are more enumerative in nature, focusing on comprehensiveness within a subject area. As collections are added, we expect this eclecticism to continue.

Donald Gallup, who compiled a bibliography on Ezra Pound, wrote that the first duty of bibliographers is to make the work useful without the need to read an introduction. The New Brunswick Bibliography database lends itself to useful discovery by its format, as long as sufficient description is included in each record. Users should not require a detailed manual for navigating each collection, as entries are organized into consistent fields with what we hope are controlled terms.

However, the importance of each collection is made plain by a series of contextual essays, which can introduce the reader to specific publishing ventures within this province or illustrate how a particular topic is captured in the published record.  Without these essays, the collections can appear as mere lists of books. Instead, we hope to help readers to understand the significance of the New Brunswick published record, with links from these narratives to entries in the database. Some essays are written by the compilers themselves, drawing from an established area of expertise. Others are invited works from scholars who can illuminate and inform a reader’s exploration of New Brunswickana.1

• 1

  Gallup, Donald. On contemporary bibliography: With particular reference to Ezra Pound. University of Texas: 1970